Leetcode - Intersection of Two Linked Lists

Question

Write a program to find the node at which the intersection of two singly linked lists begins.

For example, the following two linked lists:

A:       a1 → a2
                 ↘
                   c1 → c2 → c3
                 ↗            
B:  b1 → b2 → b3

begin to intersect at node c1.

---

Note

• If the two linked lists have no intersection at all, return null.
• The linked lists must retain their original structure after the function returns.
• You may assume there are no cycles anywhere in the entire linked structure.
• Your code should preferably run in O(n) time and use only O(1) memory.

---

Java Code

public class ListNode {
    int val;
    ListNode next;
    ListNode(int x) {
        val = x;
        next = null;
    }
}

public ListNode getIntersectionNode(ListNode headA, ListNode headB) {
    if(headA == null || headB == null) 
        return null;

    ListNode i = headA;
    ListNode j = headB;
    int lenA = 1;
    int lenB = 1;

    //统计两个链表的长度
    while((i = i.next) != null) lenA++;
    while((j = j.next) != null) lenB++;

    //指针i总是指向较长的链表，计算较长链表中需要忽略的前若干个节点
    int ignore = 0;
    if(lenA >= lenB) {
        ignore = lenA - lenB;
        i = headA;
        j = headB;
    }else {
        ignore = lenB - lenA;
        i = headB;
        j = headA;
    }

    //将节点指针i移到第ignore个节点处
    for(int count = 0; count < ignore; ++count)
        i = i.next;

    //同时遍历两个链表，直到遇到第一个相交的节点
    while(i != null){
        if(i == j) 
            return i;
        else {
            i = i.next;
            j = j.next;
        }
    }

    //遍历完所有节点也没找到相交节点
    return null;
}

说明

• 本题如果没有好的处理办法，那么解决问题会很麻烦，而且复杂度也达不到要求。我们可以通过分析发现，两个有交集的单向链表在相交之后实际上就合并为一条链表了，所以可以找到两者在长度上的等量关系，从而可以轻松地找到两者的第一个交点。